


Scarlett Saint

by Luthien_Tigrest



Series: Scarlett Saint [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 02:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19123066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien_Tigrest/pseuds/Luthien_Tigrest





	1. Prologue

The village was burning, and the few that had survived, about thirty in all, hid in the modest church, the only stone building the small village offered. The doors were barred, and as the fire ravaged the town around them, they began to weep. The people feared for their souls, for the healer had told them of his coming, the Scarlett King, who stole the breath and soul of those he touched. They gathered around the healer, the boy of sixteen clad in white robes. 

“Tell us!” they begged, “How can we save ourselves!” 

The boy shook his head, sadness reflecting in crystal blue eyes. “I am truly sorry. I did not make it here in enough time to warn you, but I cannot do what you need. I am a healer, I will not scar your flesh.”

The Scarlett King, a myth until a few years ago, deity of a dying cult known as the Children of the Scarlett King, had all but gone out of the world. Like all old legends, time was slowly eroding it away, but then something changed. One day, in a sleepy little village a symbol appeared in blood on the side of the elders house. No one knew what to make of it, it looked like a squinting eye with runic symbols around it that no one could identify. Stranger yet, no one appeared injured, and all the livestock was accounted for and safe. No one could figure where the blood had come from. It hardly mattered though. By the next morning, the village was reduced to charcoal and ash, burnt bodies in the streets where they seemed to have been running from something. It was three days before someone passed through and found the gruesome display.  
Soldiers from the nearest city were dispatched and arrived five days after that, and couldn’t make sense of the matter, or the symbol, that is all but one. He said nothing though, until they returned back to the castle. That night an urgent meeting took place in a back room with three people in dark red cloaks. The three of them were the collective members of the Scarlett King cult in that area. Lasting only an hour, the secretive meeting ended with the soldier returning to the barracks, and the other two leaving the city in opposite directions to inform other members. No one yet knew who had sacrificed the village to their god, but never the less, they would use this to inspire their brothers and sisters into more acts.

One of the townsmen grabbed the boy’s collar and lifted him off the ground. “Tell us what you mean. You said you were a saint, damn our bodies, how do we save our souls.”  
The boy placed his hands on the arms of the man, and when he had calmed he sat the boy down. Taking a quill and ink, and grabbing a piece of paper he drew a symbol. “I will not do this to you, but if you wish to do so yourselves, you may carve this with a knife into your own foreheads, and that of your children. It is a barbaric practice but it is the only one I know of to save you.” The man snatched the paper from the boy and started passing it around.  
“Remember!” The young healer called out, “this cannot save your life. All it does is secure where you go after.”

The boy known only as Saint turned away from them then, looking out the window, trying to see through the haze of smoke. He was here with them this time, arriving sooner than any time before. This was the sixth village to be targeted by the cult, the third this year. It had been two villages last year, and the one that started all this the year before that. It was accelerating, and still no one had ever been seen starting these fires, or killing the townsfolk. No one was any closer to answers as to what was happening, or what this was leading up to. No symbol in blood this time, meaning that the marking was placed after the village’s destruction.


	2. Misled

The soft scraping of a dagger pulling free of its scabbard seemed to last forever, causing the young healer to inhale and hold his breath. Pale hands rose from his sides to pull the hood of his white robe up over his head, covering neck length hair that shared the colour of the healers vestments. A few men grunted, the women whimpered, and the few children screamed and cried when the blade carved the shape into each persons flesh. Saint tried the best he could to remain stoic through it all, but the scent of the blood was strong, more so even than the smoke that found its way through the cracks of the doors and windows. From the flickering light of candles in the building, the boy could just make out his own reflection in the glass. Luckily for him, the villagers were distracted by fear, paying no attention to the reflection. Maybe one or two of them might have been spared a little bit of pain if they had. Between the smell of the blood, and the sounds of pain, a slow smile crept onto Saint’s face. This was the sixth time he had done this, but the first where he had played the part of the hopeful savior. There was a satisfaction in it, as though playing a game where you know you have the upper hand. Gathering himself, he turned around, the smile replaced by an expression of concern. Slowly the false healer walked towards the huddled group that had acknowledged and accepted their own death just now. There was no longer any hope of salvation in their eyes, they knew they were going to die. What they did not know, and what they were about to find out, was who would be responsible and how it would happen.

Saint’s voice was sweet, almost whimsical, like a child at play, but something was terribly wrong with it. There was something each person would note in it, but wouldn’t be able to properly explain it. It was that quality that you sometimes feel when no matter how truthful someone sounds, you just know that they are lying, that they were not all that they appear, and what their true nature is...well it’s something you’d rather not see.  
“Now then. Is everyone comfortable? Since you are all about to die anyway, lets play a game, say....Hide and seek.”  
Confusion grew on some faces, while others were too absorbed in prayer to pay the boy any attention, but none could comprehend what happened next. To them it was just pain and darkness. Each one had been cut, and each one was bleeding. That blood was his to control once it left their bodies, and control it he did. It flowed at his command into the eyes of them all, turning every last one pure crimson. Before anyone could claw at their faces though the blood pushed through their eyes, becoming needles that pierced through to the very back fo the socket. His face was the last thing they ever saw, and the last words they heard was his mocking insane laughter and teasing.  
“I’ll hide, and you all try to find me before I kill you.”

It was a quiet day, not even the birds were singing, though it was already mid morning. The smell of smoke drifted lazily through the sunny sky. The crops would be ready to harvest soon in the small village, that was if the people of the tiny town had needed them. Saint walked down the main road, blackened by the soot of the fires from the night before, whistling a tune. The boy drug the charred lifeless body of a young woman by the arm, with one hand, while the other held a small object carefully enclosed in his protective fingers. Spiralling up one arm, across his back, and back down the other was what appeared to be a giant red snake, made entirely of liquid blood. It twisted and moved about his upper body as if possessed. To his left one of the market stalls collapsed, the embers finally eating away enough at the structure for its supports to fail. It was hard to see at first, but there on the burnt corpse, in the middle of the forehead was the marking. At the end of the street was a white stone building, the one from the night before, now covered in smears of dark soot. What lay beyond that building was his final destination. Coming around the side of the building Saint looked up at his handiwork. Covering the entire side wall of the stone building was a giant mark, same as the one on the woman, a squinting eye painted in blood. It had taken more than one person's blood to make the sign, and even though he was the artist, the boy himself did not have a single drop of red anywhere on his clean, white robe. His whistling ceased as he remembered the words to the song.

“Look at the red blood  
A thick crimson ocean  
And all it requires  
Is a quick killing motion 

I'm totally sane  
My logic is true  
But all humans fear  
The strange and the new”

His voice was light and whimsical, he couldn’t remember where he had heard the song, but Saint felt that this was the proper occasion to sing it. Rounding the corner to the backside of the building, a large tree came into view, almost untouched by the fires. In this tree hung the bodies of men, women, and children, some burnt beyond recognition, others almost whole. Every last one of the bodies, every body in the village really, bore the same mark as on the woman and the wall, but only the one on the wall had been done by the boy in white.


End file.
